At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!

The thing is that Microsoft aren't marketing this for hardcore gamers. They are offering it to casual gamers and put a load of Home Theatre PC Tech in which is what Samsung incidentally is doing with their SMART TV technology.

Most of the people I know that have Smart TVs are between 35-50 and like their gadgets.

They don't need to market it for hardcore gamers as they'll already buy into it if they want to play any of the platform exclusive titles.

I've so far found Samsung's SmartTV stuff to be a rather useless gimmick. It looks good on paper but it's awkward to use and doesn't actually integrate well with the TV flow, requiring quite a few steps to get to launch a not-that-fast-to-load application that more often than not turns out to not be nearly as useful or fun as you might have thought it would be.

I don't see the HTPC features of the XBoxOne being really enticing outside of the US, but at least I hope they work better than that (although going by the Verge's article on the potential desync issues with the IR remote, that might not be exactly the case).